Unlimited Power
by Old Man Palp
Summary: With apotheosis finally achieved, the Shadow reflects on his past, contemplates the future, and comes to a realisation that will change the universe forever.


The Shadow had won

It hadn't been an easy victory, of course. Nothing that was worth achieving ever came quickly. But then, it had never been in doubt, either. From the moment he was borne through his mother's womb and saw the world, eyes alight with what his father, so long ago, had called "malevolence, cunning, and malice made manifest", he had known his place in the universe, where he was destined to be; at the top of everything, not just the planet, or the solar system, or sector, or the galaxy, but the universe. And thus, it had all come full circle, and here he was, at last.

While his victory may never have been truly in doubt, there had always come along complications and delays at every step of the long journey, on every step of the road. From his first students' untimely demise, to many years later, at his second apprentices' loss and dismemberment to a lone Jedi. It had, at times, been truly infuriating. Enraging, even.

But now? Now all of that seemed so very distant and irrelevant. Historical events that had no doubt occurred but now no longer mattered, bar to the fools clinging to the past and the dead themselves. Now the Shadow was power. Now the Shadow was a god made incarnate. More energy than flesh, power and will and fury mixed together into a perfect, roiling storm. Nothing was truly beyond his abilities now; with a gesture he could detonate star systems, and with a blink see the edge of the known universe and into the ends of history itself. Even in the last days before his apotheosis, his darkness had saturated the entire galaxy, seeping into everything and everyone, infecting and tainting and corrupting. His power, as it always had, as it always did, continued to grow and expand, becoming the mightiest being to ever exist, and then beyond that coveted status still further onward.

He could feel, at all times, the universes fragile fabric of space and time quiver and shake and recoil at his existence and unspeakable power. He could feel the uncountable number of organisms in the galaxy, sapient or otherwise, living in a blissful trance, barely even qualifying as alive at all. He could feel his tendrils of power connected to them all, as he simultaneously wiped them of intelligence, independence, and higher thought, minuscule as it already was, whilst draining them of their life essence, feeding and nourishing himself. Their weakness was his ascension, weakness that dictated their place in life; to serve the whims of their superior, as was only natural, as had, is, and always will be the course of life, no matter what form it may take. He had merely taken it all to its logical endpoint, as he was, naturally, the strongest there was. And thus, a being with the power of a pantheon of gods had been formed.

Equally, however, the Shadow was, arguably above all other things, intelligent. He never would have gotten where he was if he wasn't. He knew better than to the follow in the footsteps of the mistakes of some of his predecessors, and to drain too much, too fast from the weaklings and parasites and idiots. Much better instead to gradually drain little scraps of life force, nothing that could seriously hinder, and certainly not kill. Why kill the livestock and harvest all the material at once, when instead, he could carefully cultivate and farm them, and thus, have the far more valuable, not to mention far more, long term gains? The rabble had to be kept as passive as a well-trained akk-dog, of course, but that was hardly an issue anymore. The galaxy had no way, no method of escaping him now, even if it wanted to. It was far, far too late for that. Perhaps, in times past, he might, could have been stopped. In his time as a mortal, he had faced forms of opposition to his plans serious enough to necessitate changes and adaptation, no matter how indiscreet and carefully laid they were. If even one of his adversaries succeeded at a critical juncture it would have been all lost forever.

The Shadow merely smiled, a formless, bone-chilling deaths head grin that chilled and froze space itself. No, nothing could have stopped him. After all, as he had learned on several, painful occasions, the potential to achieve an end was far different from the actuality, and he had been very, very meticulously cautious indeed. The only person that had the potential and was in a position to actualize his defeat was now a loyal servant, serving by his master's side. He had knowingly thrown himself into the den of the dragon, both accepting of his death and assured in his victory in a truly amusing, if quizzical paradox. In a further twist of ultimate irony, he had ended up killing the very man he had tried to save in his pointless, futile quest. His fall had always been assured from the moment he had entered, from the moment of the young man's very birth he had belonged to the Shadow. Nonetheless, the Shadow had taken great pleasure in breaking him and watching him fall, even if it hadn't been quick or painless by any measure. The man's dead comrades and the floating space debris of a long-forgotten fleet in a remote system could surely attest to that.

With his fall and subsequent training, the young man had become incredibly powerful now, more so than anyone else in history. Excluding, of course, the Shadow himself. The man may be a demi-god, but he was the Shadow, a god among gods, and certainly above any mortals. As for the rest of the young man's clan, they were all either disposed of or under his thumb as much as the man himself. All powerful, but kept as carefully subdued and controlled as possible. Each and every one a beautifully polished and refined trophy piece outstripping any mere trinket or physical object, all for him to admire and bask in. For if the Skywalkers, beings he and his master had coined as 'Forceful', borne solely from the energy field itself, with the singular purpose to remove him, had been made his, then there truly was nothing he could fear.

The Shadow idly turned his gaze upon his dominion, onto himself. The Galactic Empire, as it had once been called, had always been nothing more than extension of himself and a tool to use. Now that was quite literal indeed. As some of the more observant and wise in the past had noted, the Shadow had been the beating heart of the entire Empire, the growing abominable butterfly contained in its protective, not to mention distracting, shell. An incredibly powerful, incredibly effective shell the likes of which the galaxy had never seen before, but a shell nonetheless. Now that his ascension was complete, the shell had served its purpose, and like everything else, had been subsumed into his all-encompassing will. Not to say the shell didn't still possess some utility. Mundane it may be, it is still an effective blunt weapon to supplement himself, only now, in a much less metaphorical sense.

After all, even in the galaxies twilight days, when all of rivals and opponents and threats were long gone, the Empire had served its purpose wonderfully well, even as he had eaten it from the inside out, gradually replacing its leadership with extensions of his power with none the wiser to what was occurring right in front of their eyes. In in an amusing twist, in many ways he did to the Empire what he had done to its predecessor, only in reverse. By the end days, not even the most defiant or most intelligent, whether they were directly his servants and underlings or otherwise, could do anything but look on and smile in vacant bliss as his power slowly, ever so slowly, inched and slithered into the foundations of the galaxy, of the Force itself. And in a single, masterful stroke, he finalized both his domination of both the metaphysical and physical planes, making his connection to them and his power over them unbreakable. A flash of light in the Force that showed the ultimate truth of Sith philosophy and his own, bending the very energies and life blood of the universe to his will, a flash akin to both a scream of unfathomable pain and an explosion that the physical realm hadn't seen since its creation; the Shadow had apotheosized.

The galaxy was now a black hole of the Force; perfect in its darkness and intensity, sucking in the surrounding light and devouring it as easily as a candle being snuffed out by absolute zero into utter non-existence. No effort required, not even a needing an active effort anymore. It simply happened, as was dictated by the order of things.

The Shadow continued to survey his dominion, his own being, reflecting and pondering matters both cosmic and otherwise. Then he realized something intriguing.

He was still empty.

He paused for a moment, contemplating.

The great void, vacuum itself, shoke. Stars and constellations quivered in terror.

The Shadow grinned once more; planets nearby experienced a drop in temperature akin to an ice age. He didn't care. He knew what he had to do next. He had always known, from his very birth, had he not?

All across his domain, factories and shipyards and other such machinery began rolling, going into over drive. Fleets of millions of star ships were gathered and armies of hundreds of trillions of troops organized. With the illusion of free will finally removed from the delusional masses, the countless, innumerable amount of problems caused by sapience, and its counterpart, emotions, and their many biological flaws and irrationalities that came along with them, were no more, as irrelevant and pointless as the day they were first created. There were no more silly games of politics and intrigue that had plagued every society, no matter how 'civilized', since time immemorial; no more governments or economies or other such collective agreements between people, because there was no more collective; no more suspicion or fear or hate or empathy or compassion or lust or love. And because of all this, something much more beneficial and useful had filled in the gap to take their place. Tireless, unyielding efficiency, perfect coordination, and consistent, unified competence. A more than worthwhile trade, suffice to say. An entire galaxy and its populace, quintillions upon quintillions all things told, all part of and merged with one infinitely above themselves. Material might had scarcely been of any concern before, and now? Now the full might of a _truly _Galactic Empire was unleashed, unshackled from any constraints imposed upon it bar the fundamentals of the universes laws themselves, and even they, too, would eventually be circumnavigated soon enough.

Looking on in deep, abiding satisfaction, the Shadow settled into himself. The next step was blindingly obvious.

After all, he was aware of his limits, of what lay beyond; he may be a god, but there were still certain things, despite his vast might, that lay past his limits and reach. The Force itself, for one. Not the watered down, inferior "Living" Force, characterized by emotions and sapience, and thus, virtually no longer existed in this galaxy, but the transcendent, truly cosmic and omniscient, omnipresent, even omnipotent "Unifying" Force, as the Jedi referred to it. Fortunately, he planned to change that. Nigh-omnipotence was novel, but he would be a fool to settle for his lot.

No. No, he needed more. Control of this mere one galaxy wasn't enough. Not anywhere near enough. After all, what was one interstellar body to countless billions, trillions of them, or even more, all contained in an infinite and ever-expanding universe? All of them just beyond his reach, yet still tantalizingly within sight, still untouched and pure, brimming with life and light and possibilities.

The Shadow would go to another galaxy. He would cross the unimaginably vast gap of space, and claim it as well. He would dominate this new galaxy as completely and totally, materially and mentally, spiritually and metaphysically, as he did this current one. And then when he was finished, he would go to the next, and the next one, and the next one after that, spreading and consuming, until his might blotted not the planets or stars or systems or sectors, but the galaxies themselves.

He would never be content until all of the galaxies and their sparks of light were eternally shrouded in darkness and shadow, but much more importantly, was subservient to and completely and utterly under his thrall, until they were His. All of the powers and mysteries and secrets of the Cosmic Force, of the universe itself, His. All of existence, His.

And then, when the Shadow was truly, honestly, everything, and everything, even ultimate omnipotence, was His, then and only then would he stop, and the emptiness disappear. For a time. And then, he would repeat the cycle. After all, there were surely other universes, other realities ripe for the plucking. He would take them and dominate and enslave and drain them of everything, until there was nothing left. He would empty them, and fill them with himself.

The Shadow had already succeeded where all others, all its predecessors and enemies and allies had failed totally. He hadn't won in just one realm, as some of the more ambitious had tried in the past, only to fail, as was to be expected. He had won, in every sense of the word. So, then, what was the rest of existence, in comparison? He wasn't so arrogant or delusional to believe he would never face serious opposition again, but he had won with far, far less than that of the resources of his current self, against far worse odds. He could, would, do it again, over and over, no matter how many times it took.

And so the Shadow basked in its power once more, flexing and exerting until he was, for the briefest of moments, a cloud of darkness looming over all of life, everywhere; for one moment larger than existence itself; a darkness lurking not just in the blackness behind walls or that of dimly lit alley ways and buildings, or even the dark inherent in all beings, hidden or embraced or somewhere in between; he wasn't just the shadow of the metaphysical and spiritual, of the Dark Side of the Force, or even the Force itself. For the shortest of atto seconds, of incomprehensible length to the greatest mortal, yet at the same time, for one such as himself, enough to taste and to forever crave, he _WAS_ the Dark.

And as he always had, back during his mortal existence as human male named Palpatine, Head of the House of Palpatine of Naboo, former Ambassador of Naboo, former Galactic Senator, former Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, subsequent Emperor of the Galactic Empire, Darth Sidious, Dark Lord of the Sith, anointed chosen Avatar of the Dark Side, the Sith'rai, the Undying; now Palpatine the God, the Shadow, and soon, the One Above All; as always, he bidded his time and waited patiently for his chance at unlimited power, already almost within his grasp.

* * *

So. This is my first time publishing anything, fan fiction or otherwise, although I have wrote before in my spare time, and been interested in it for as long as I remember. This is based off of various sources from the old Legends continuity, specifically those detailing or speculating what Palpatine's ultimate plan was.

Anyhow, hope you enjoy. Star Wars is property of Disney and Lucasfilm, I make no profit off this, this is purely a fan work, etc etc.


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